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Updated: Apr 16, 2026

An Allele-specific Gene Expression Assay to Test the Functional Basis of Genetic Associations
Published on: November 3, 2010
Genetic link between family socioeconomic status and children's educational achievement estimated from genome-wide
1King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.
Abstract:
One of the best predictors of children's educational achievement is their family's socioeconomic status (SES), but the degree to which this association is genetically mediated remains unclear. For 3000 UK-representative unrelated children we found that genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms could explain a third of the variance of scores on an age-16 UK national examination of educational achievement and half of the correlation between their scores and family SES. Moreover, genome-wide polygenic scores based on a previously published genome-wide association meta-analysis of total number of years in education accounted for ~3.0% variance in educational achievement and ~2.5% in family SES. This study provides the first molecular evidence for substantial genetic influence on differences in children's educational achievement and its association with family SES.
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